A BUTCHER claims to have photographed the ghost of a little girl wearing period dress and a bonnet while visiting a 900-year-old castle.

Mark Whitaker, 34, was snapping pictures on a visit to Yorkshire’s Skipton Castle in the UK when he captured the image.

It wasn’t until he returned to his home in Lancashire that he noticed a ghostly figure in the background of the picture.

The image shows a figure in a white floor-length dress and a bonnet.

Mark has released it to see what others think.

He said: “It actually sent a shiver down my spine as I didn’t see it until I transferred it to my computer.

“I think it’s a ghost of a little girl of some kind, especially with what she is wearing. She has a dress and bonnet that I think is like what they would wear two or three hundred years ago.

“But there is no physical shape, no arms or face appears.

“It looks like she is walking away from the picture past a wall that is only about two or three feet high so she must be an infant. There would have been high infant mortality rates in that period.”

Mark continued: “It has created quite a stir. Obviously with a picture like that there is lots of speculation about whether I have Photoshopped it.

“But I don’t even own Photoshop or have access to it and I don’t know how to use it even if I did. Other people have said it is a spirit. Everyone I have shown it to have been quite taken aback by it.”

Mark had visited the castle, built by a Norman baron in 1090, with his partner Amanda Ledger.

He added: “Neither of us had been to the castle since we were in primary school and had fond memories.

“I’m a keen photographer so I took my camera with me. Amanda was pregnant at the time so I had wandered off on my own to look around.

“It wasn’t until I got home that I realised what was in the image.”

Mark converted the image to black and white but sadly that saved over the original file.

Despite taking the picture in July 2014, after initially showing it to friends and family Mark forgot about the image but decided to speak out about it now.

Mark said: “It creeps me out, it really does still just looking at it. Amanda always finds it creepy too.”